Few franchises are as gloriously confusing as the X-Men. Over two decades, Fox made films that jumped between the 1960s and a dystopian future, quietly rebooted the whole timeline halfway through, and bolted on Deadpool and Logan at the edges. Here’s how to watch them — in release order and in chronological (story) order — plus a plain-English explanation of the timeline reset that trips everyone up. (For another sprawling saga that loves to scramble its own chronology, see our guide to navigating the Marvel Cinematic Universe.)
X-Men movies in release order
The simplest way to watch, and the way the story was told to audiences:
- X-Men (2000)
- X2: X-Men United (2003)
- X-Men: The Last Stand (2006)
- X-Men Origins: Wolverine (2009)
- X-Men: First Class (2011)
- The Wolverine (2013)
- X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014)
- Deadpool (2016)
- X-Men: Apocalypse (2016)
- Logan (2017)
- Deadpool 2 (2018)
- Dark Phoenix (2019)
- The New Mutants (2020)
X-Men movies in chronological (story) order
If you’d rather follow the in-universe timeline, this is the accepted order. (The films are loose with exact dates, so use this as a story sequence rather than a precise calendar.)
- X-Men: First Class — 1962, the Xavier–Magneto origin
- X-Men: Days of Future Past — 1973 (and a future framing device that resets the timeline)
- X-Men: Apocalypse — 1983
- Dark Phoenix — 1992
- X-Men Origins: Wolverine — Wolverine’s backstory (spanning the 1800s to the 1970s/80s)
- X-Men — 2000s
- X2: X-Men United
- X-Men: The Last Stand
- The Wolverine — post-Last Stand
- The New Mutants — contemporary
- Deadpool / Deadpool 2 — contemporary (tonal outliers that mostly stand apart)
- Logan — 2029, the finale
The timeline reset explained (why it’s so confusing)
Here’s the knot at the centre of the franchise. The first films — X-Men, X2, and The Last Stand — established an “original timeline.” Then First Class went back to the 1960s as a prequel. The pivot came with X-Men: Days of Future Past: the plot involves sending Wolverine’s consciousness back to 1973 to prevent a catastrophic future, and in doing so, the characters change history.
That act of changing the past effectively reboots the continuity. Events from the original trilogy are undone or overwritten, which is why later films like Apocalypse and Dark Phoenix exist in a slightly altered timeline — and why some details don’t line up neatly with the older movies. Days of Future Past is, in effect, the hinge that lets Fox wipe the slate and continue with the younger First Class-era cast. If you enjoy this kind of timeline-bending, the way time folds back on itself in Netflix’s Dark scratches a similar itch.
The takeaway: don’t expect perfect continuity. The franchise contains at least two overlapping timelines stitched together by Days of Future Past, plus standalone-ish entries (Deadpool, Logan, The New Mutants) that don’t sweat the wider chronology.
Where do Deadpool and Logan fit?
Deadpool and Deadpool 2 are set in the modern day and are deliberately loose with continuity — they reference the X-Men universe but play by their own comedic rules. Logan is set in 2029 and works as an elegiac finale to Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine; it’s best watched last, regardless of which order you choose. The New Mutants is a contemporary-set horror-tinged spin-off that stands largely on its own.
Which order should you watch?
For a first watch, go release order — you’ll experience the reboot the way it was designed, and the Days of Future Past twist lands harder. For a rewatch, chronological order is a fun way to trace the Xavier–Magneto saga from 1962 to 2029.
More from Quack Review: Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine returns in Deadpool & Wolverine, plus more superhero action in our Hollywood section.
